stuart@ssc-vax.UUCP (Stuart Lewis) (06/07/84)
One more (only one?!?!) comment concerning albums at top 40 stations. Very true that A.M. Top 40 stations rarely use albums. They don't use 45's either! WHAT? Yes! Immediatly upon recieving an album, a production manager will put the choice "current" hot cuts onto a cart. A cart is simply a modified 8-track cartridge. Stations buy empty carts buy the thousands, and reels of blank tape buy the hundreds of yards. Then each cart is custom filled with just the right time amount of tape (within 5 to 10 seconds of the song length to be put on it). Then the songs are put on it. Ergo, the record library of the station is brand new so that they can play the hell out of a cart and then make a new copy of it from a once played original. Walk in to any top 40 station and you won't see any records. (Large market that is). Play it 'til you vomit!! Stuart Lewis ssc-vax!stuart
merchant@dartvax.UUCP (06/09/84)
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Well, yes, many stations tend to use carts. However, I believe the
sound quality isn't quite so good, but you make up for it with longer
lasting music. (Nothing is worse than "Orville Redenbacher's greatest
popcorn hits)
When I refered to "singles", however, I should have been a little
clearer. "Singles", sometimes, are edited forms of the album cut.
If the cut is too long or has a very loud section (lots of heavy
guitars, for example) it may be cut so that it is, in theory, more
pleasing. Sometimes it works: Robert Plant and "In The Mood" is a
very nice single. I found the album cut boring. There's a minute
and a half of him just kind of humming "I'm in the mood" while music
plays in the background. Snore city.
But, as we all know, this isn't always true. I don't like the
editting job that they did on "Another Brick In The Wall". They
left out the marvelous little tinkling noises on Alan Parson's
"Damned if I do" and they really chopped up Michael Jackson's
"Thriller". I'll admit, they weren't going to release it as a
single and changed their minds at the last minute, but...
The best example, though, is the new Duran Duran single, "The Reflex."
The album cut I rather like. At the radio station I was at, I talked
with the music director while we were listening to the song for the
first time, from the album. We hadn't received the single. It's a bit
lengthy for Top 40 play (5:35) and we were trying to figure out how
they would edit it. But even with all the revisions and edits that we
came up with, the best we could knock it down to was about 5:00.
So what do they do? The remix it at about 2% the normal speed and
stick some reverbs in at strategic points and the song is 4:22.
And it sounds like something an engineer would do to show off what
a multitrack mixing board can do. As I say, it's not a song, it's
a "techno-toy."
--
"Stop! Peter Merchant
Son!
What are you doing?!
That's no way to treat an expensive
musical instrument!" -- Jim Steinmanron@brl-vgr.ARPA (Ron Natalie <ron>) (06/09/84)
Cart's are not modified 8-tracks. They've been around much longer than that. The reason for buying bulk tape and cartridge shells is more economy than anything else, although we found it a pain in the ass, and just used preloaded ones. Cart's also lend themselves very well to automation. -Ron